“Why, are you expecting my first plan to fail? Don’t be such a pessimist, girl.”

–Last words of the Concrete Jungle as recorded by Tiger Pink.

“Wheels within wheels within wheels… I can practically hear the hum of his mind working from across the room. I’ll certainly never play poker with him again, that’s for sure.”

–Cold Comet’s , entry in her personal log

It’s a little past two am when the base alarms start ringing. We aren’t on call or even on reserve, so the alarms are totally unexpected. I roll out of bed and for a second I’m confused as to who I am and what the noise means. I rub my eyes and start moving slowly towards the door. The alarms are so loud that I can’t even hear Little Voice’s angry swearing when he bursts into my room. He grabs me and pulls me towards the armory. A steward gives us glasses of warm coffee laced with stimulants and we down them quickly. My head begins to clear and the alarms cut out.

“What the bloody hell is going on here?” yells Little Voices, and he has never sounded more bewildered or more Australian.

Never Lies is already in the armory. She is still in her pajamas but she strips them off and starts pulling her suit on. Little Voices and I turn around so that we don’t see her naked, but she isn’t pleased by our modesty.

“Get ready, idiots! A naked woman isn’t the scariest thing you are going to see tonight!”

The rest of the team arrives and technicians start rushing us into our suits. I’m a bit slow getting undressed, so Never Lies cuts my shirt off with a knife. The armory lights are bright and unforgiving, and the members of the team find themselves naked in front of a huge group of technicians and stewards. I expect a few cat calls and jokes, but all I can hear is a terrified and frantic silence.

Never Lies has her huge plasma cannons mounted in the weapon pods on her shoulders. She straps on a short pulse sword and shoves a couple of grenades into pouches on her belt.

“We need to move faster!” she yells.

We are in the Comet within a minute, but we aren’t ready for battle. Bad Day helps me put the last of my armor on while One Trick helps Simon Smith and Phoenix Pink run power checks on their suits. We have never left the armory before we were ready, so we all know something big has gone wrong.

Something real big.

The Comet takes off so quickly that we are shoved hard into our harnesses. We climb quickly and I hear a boom as we break the sound barrier while we are still over the base. We all look to Never Lies and she frowns with concern.

“It’s a new type of saucer, and it’s heading to Germany. A super called Mic Ginger called it in. The saucer will be in Berlin soon, but we didn’t have enough warning to evacuate. The General and his team were sent to take it down… but that was twenty minutes ago and it’s still in the air.”

“And The General’s team?” I ask.

“No-one knows.”

That makes us worry, because although I hate The General I still respect his power. If the saucer killed him and his team, what chance do we have?

“The saucer is melting everything around it with some kind of plasma waves. We have already lost a few towns, and things are only going to get worse. Every team has been called in to stop it, even Mercy. The plan is to swarm it.”

“That sounds… like a bad plan,” Simon Smith says casually, and Never Lies has to agree.

“I got the word late, so we will be the last team on the scene. That wasn’t my fault, or my choice. Dark Fire and the rest of the Cerberus Brawlers will be there already, so we can meet up with them… if they haven’t brought down the saucer by then.”

I have a sinking feeling in my gut that the saucer will still be flying, but I say nothing and check my suit. The Comet’s engines whine as the pilot tries to set a new speed record.

“What more do you know about this saucer? What kind of creatures is it dropping?” I ask.

“No creatures have been reported. All I’ve heard is that it’s a saucer with a weapon that’s reaping superheroes like there is no tomorrow.”

I’ve never heard of a saucer that doesn’t drop monsters of some kind to defend it, so this one should have been easy to take down. The fact that it has a different kind of defense worries me a lot, and I’m not alone.

“Bad, bad, bad,” says Bad Day.

But we are superheroes, and dealing with bad news is our bread and butter. Simon Smith starts humming a song to himself, and Phoenix Pink closes her eyes as if meditating. One Trick nods and looks at Bad Day, who smiles and takes her gloved hand. Never Lies holds a radio phone up to her ear and listens intently to it. Whatever news she is hearing must be bad, because she drops her eyes and shakes her head. She tries to maintain a calm façade, but we know her well enough to see how worry she really is.

“Three minutes to drop,” she warns.

“Can anybody hear that whining sound?” asks Little Voices.

“No,” I say, and everyone stops what they are doing to listen.

I can hear the Comet’s engines beyond the cabin, and the jingle of our harnesses as we move, but nothing more. Little Voices holds his hands over his ears like the noise is overwhelming.

“It’s them,” says Simon Smith with a thin smile.

“Them?” asks One Trick.

“What noise? It might be your suit malfunctioning. Describe it,” orders Never Lies.

“It’s not my suit… it’s in my head. It’s like last time, when I heard the dog whistle you guys used to lure the monsters in, but this time it hurts.”

“Targeting us,” mutters Simon Smith, apparently without concern.

“The saucer knows we are here. We should power up and bail,” Little Voices says impatiently as Simon Smith starts moving towards the ramp at the back of the Comet.

Never Lies ignores him; she’s listening to her radiophone, and her face is grim.

“We aren’t close enough yet,” Phoenix Pink says.

“We should power up and bail now,” insists Little Voices.

“Oh man, I’m getting this terrible feeling of déjà vu. Seriously,” says Bad Day with a moan.

He pulls the lever that powers up his suit, and Never Lies slams the radio down so hard that it splinters.

“We have our orders!” she says,

“Screw the orders! We need to bail NOW!” Little Voices says, and bangs his arm on the ramp release.

Simon Smith jumps out without a word of warning. Little Voices pulls out a knife, cuts me out of my harness, and forces me to the hatch. I try to reason with him, but he won’t listen to a word I say.

“I can hear it targeting us,” he screams, and then he throws me out of the Comet.

I fall alone for a few seconds, but I’m quickly joined by Phoenix Pink who falls awkwardly towards me. I catch her and we float together.

“He disconnected my suit so I couldn’t rescue you!” she screams.

Little Voices must have been desperate to try something so dangerous. Bad Day flashes next to me and drops One Trick, then flashes again and delivers Never Lies, Simon Smith and finally Little Voices.

“What the hell?” demands Never Lies angrily.

“They were targeting us!” yells Little Voices.

“…and I believed him. You know why,” says Bad Day.

We fly towards them as the Comet continues towards the saucer, leaving us far behind. We are about ten minutes’ flight away, and Never Lies is furious. She turns towards Little Voices and starts yelling at him.

“When we get back to the base, I am going to kick your ass so hard that –”

The Comet explodes into such a hot ball of fire that our shields flicker. I didn’t see what hit it, but there is nothing left except a thin cloud of grey smoke.

“– you tell me all about those noises in your head! Bad Day, you did a good job. Now everyone scatter!” orders Never Lies.

We scatter, and she tries to use her radio to contact other teams to warn them.

“I could hear it targeting me,” Little Voices says to Phoenix Pink , “I’m sorry I disconnected your power, but I didn’t want you bringing anyone back into the Comet.”

“I can take it.”

The red saucer is so bright that I can’t look right at it, even with my aviators. Superheroes swarm over it liked tiny moths around a lantern, and it lashes out with arcs of plasma that are so powerful that I can hear their buzz. The plasma flashes every time it catches a superhero, and they fall from the sky like dead insects.

“Uh oh,” Bad Day mutters.

“They aren’t dead, but they aren’t moving much once they hit the ground. I think it burnt out their powerpacks,” Little Voices says.

We don’t ask him how he knows that, we just take his word for it.

“Is it targeting us now?” Never Lies asks.

“I don’t think so.”

“Then let’s go.”

We fly in formation, silent and ready to fight. Never Lies keeps her eyes on the battle before us, and we watch the skies for any sign of further attack. A super in a red suit flies up to join us, a glowing sword in his hand.

“I’m Mic Ginger,” he says.

“You called this in? Why aren’t you dead yet?”

Mic Ginger shrugs. Maybe he’s lucky. Maybe he’s badass. His sword certainly is. It glows bright with barely-contained power.

“It isn’t targeting anyone on the ground,” Never Lies says, and motions for us to fly down.

We fly low across the ground until we are beneath the saucer. I except to be attacked at any moment, but the saucer doesn’t target us. A pair of superheroes above us aren’t so lucky and are burnt up as they try to fly over the saucer and bomb it. Fallen superheroes lie scattered around us, and only some of them are still moving. One of them, a woman in red called Five Waves, calls out to us.

“Come on! What are you waiting for?” she shouts, and shoots upwards.

She doesn’t make it very far before the coils of plasma find her and burn her powerpack out, sending her falling back to Earth with a thump. She had good shields, but the plasma had no trouble targeting her and taking her out with a single hit. A few of the faster superheroes are still in the air, but none have made it anywhere near the saucer.

Never Lies swears loudly.

There are very few superheroes left in the air. One of the last is so agile that he is managing to avoid the plasma coils by dodging and diving. It’s Storm Blade, and he’s doing a great job of not dying.

“Get him,” Never Lies says, and Bad Day is gone in a flash.

He struggles to catch Storm Blade, but then teleports right next to him and grabs his leg a second before the plasma coils find them both. He brings them back to Never Lies as the last of the flying superheroes crash to Earth. Storm Blade tries to take off again but Never Lies grabs his leg and forces him to the ground.

“We need to move together,” she says.

Storm Blade shakes his head when he sees me and Little Voices, but Never Lies keeps him grounded.

“This is not the time for team politics! We need your help to bring this thing down!”

“How? What can you do that no-one else could?” Storm Blade demands.

He has a point.

The battlefield is motionless, but not silent. We can hear screaming and sobbing from the fallen superheroes. A few might still be able to fly, but they are broken and scared. Most of the superheroes are weighed down by their armor and can barely even walk, but I can see one that is strong enough to climb onto a house roof nearby. He waves at us and then falls, sliding off the roof and out of view. We race over to him, pulling Storm Blade with us. The fallen superhero is Small Talk, and he looks grimmer than ever. He’s wounded, and he staggers to a kneeling position. His polished platinum suit is battered and stained with blood and burn marks, and I can see a big metal shard has pierced right into his chest armor. We join him, with me hovering over the group to shield them. Simon Smith drifts off and looks up at the saucer as if it were nothing more than a beautiful sunset. Bad Day pulls a bag of plasma out of a suit pocket and he hooks it up to Small Talk’s arm.

“The boss said you would get here late,” Small Talk says quietly.

He coughs up blood as we hear the crack and snap of plasma overhead.

“What’s been going on?” demands Never Lies.

“The saucer hits too hard and too fast. The General and his crew charged right in and it tore them apart. Even The General only took three hits before he was out. We couldn’t get anywhere near it to plant a bomb,” says Small Talk in a hoarse whisper.

“So what’s Dark Fire’s plan?” Never Lies asks.

“He took a hit, but we managed to get him in the air again. He’s trying to fly above it and get enough speed that it can’t hit him. I don’t think it will work.”

“And his other plans? He always has plans within plans.”

Small Talk’s eyes glaze over a little and his focus drifts. Bad Day shakes his head at Never Lies, but she isn’t willing to let Small Talk pass out.

“Focus, soldier!” yells Never Lies so loudly that Small Talk’s head snaps upwards.

“The plan?” he asks with a slur.

“I know he told you,” Never Lies.

Small Talk nods slightly.

“We worked it out… the best tactician… and the strongest superhero… in one team that arrives in time to see how all the others have failed. Not a co-incidence. You know what needs to be done.”

Never Lies shakes her head.

“We won’t make it alone. I need you to get the other superheroes to join us.”

She pulls a loudspeaker out of her suit and offers it to Small Talk.

“I… I can’t,” he says, and shudders.

“You must!” Never Lies says, and shoves the mic into his hand.

He grabs it weakly and pushes on the button. He coughs, and then suddenly his voice becomes as strong and confident as I’ve ever heard it.

“Listen up, this is Colonel Matt Franks of the Super Corps. Most of you know me as Iron Golem and others call me Small Talk, but you all know what will happen if you ignore my orders. I’m with a team who has a shot at taking down the saucer but they will need help. I need everyone who can fly to be ready to swarm the saucer. We launch with the pink smoke, so everyone get ready.”

He slumps backwards and moans. His eyes close, and I can only imagine how hard that must have been for him.

“Good work, soldier,” says Bad Day softly.

“You guys work with Iron Golem, and he does what you order him to? And you aren’t even the head of your unit?” says Mic Ginger with awe.

Iron Golem was a legendary superhero who the public thought had died about a year earlier. He had been notoriously camera shy, and I had never even seen a photo of him without his helmet on. I had never wondered who Small Talk had been before he joined the Cerberus Brawlers, and now I know.

“Even Dark Fire and Master Bansuri listen to what she has to say,” Phoenix Pink says, pointing at Never Lies.

We all look to Never Lies to save us. Her face is calm and blank, but I can see the fear in her eyes. She says nothing, and her shoulders droop a little as the whole weight of the world comes to rest on them.

“Can she do it?” asks Storm Blade in a whisper that seems far too loud.

Never Lies pretends not to hear him, but she must know we are all thinking the same thing. We only have one shot at this, and she will be the one who calls the play that either saves the world or dooms it.

“If she can’t do it, it can’t be done,” says Little Voices suddenly.

He pulls his huge sword off his back and sticks it in the ground. He motions us all in close together and we gather around Never Lies.

“Now are you going to give us our orders, or are we just going to stand around here awkwardly thinking about the time we all saw each other naked?” he whispers.

Never Lies shakes her head, but I know the wheels in her mind are spinning towards a plan. She takes a deep breath and then her eyes go steely grey and she stops being scared of what failure would mean. She has a plan.

We all look to Never Lies, but she looks at Simon Smith.

“Everyone focus on me. We can do this as a team, but we need to work together. Here’s the play,” says Never Lies.

Three minutes later Never Lies pops a couple of pink flares. Storm Blade and a handful of superheroes leave the ground and fly upwards above us to distract the saucer, and Never Lies waits a few seconds before nodding to her team. We rise as a team in a tight clump of bodies to present one target. I’m at the top, shielding the others. Simon Smith is right at the bottom, the ace up our sleeves. We aren’t far off the ground before the plasma coils find the first three of our escorts.

“There aren’t enough,” says Phoenix Pink

“Focus on what you are doing!” snaps Never Lies.

Mic Ginger flies past and gives me the thumbs up. He dodges a coil of plasma, but a second coil catches his leg. He shrugs it off and keeps flying, almost making it to the saucer before a dozen coils focus on him, making a cage he can’t escape. His whole body lights up and he falls. Storm Blade is next. He only lasts a minute, and then it’s our turn.

“It’s got us,” Little Voices calls out.

Bad Day immediately teleports in front of us as the plasma fires down. He screams as it hits him, and drops fast. He bounces off my shield and Never Lies catches him. She checks that he is okay, pulls the cord of one of his parachutes, and drops him. Our first has fallen, but we still rise.

We are still too far away when Little Voices calls out again. Phoenix Pink teleports ahead to take the hit, and she also falls. We lose the last of our escorts a few seconds later, and we are alone with the dreadful saucer.

A few peaceful seconds go past and I think we are going to survive when Little Voices yells yet again. He tries to fly up past me, but One Trick flickers uncertainly and then pops into place about ten meters above me. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her move like that, and her flying falters.

“Hells yes! I can teleport – ” but then the plasma finds her, and she falls. She hits my shield on the way down, and I wince.

We have no more teleporters, and the plasma begins to target us more and more frequently. A blast hits my shields, and they drop down to almost nothing as my word turns white. I am blind, but I can feel Never Lies holding my leg and flying me as if I were a kite. My suit is so hot that I can feel my face blistering, but my shields flicker back on.

But only just.

“I can take another,” I yell, but the ringing in my ears make it hard to hear a reply.

“No!” yells someone so loudly that I can hear them.

A foot plants itself on my shoulder and someone launches themselves upwards. I hear the buzz of plasma again, and I know that Little Voices has thrown himself in front of the saucer for me.

Never Lies grabs my helmet and flicks open the visor.

“I’m going to use all my power to boost you and Simon Smith!” she screams.

I nod; my vision is returning, but my suit is still painfully hot.

We surge upwards as Never Lies casts aside her gun pods and massive plasma cannons. Her shield fails, and I realize she has overloaded her suit’s power source to give it everything she can. She has a lot of power, and we make it almost to the saucer before it fails. Simon Smith and I keep flying, but I catch Never Lies before she falls. Her suit is on fire, and I can see that the parachutes on her back have been burnt up from within the suit.

“Go!” she says, but I can’t let her drop.

She knows what I’m thinking.

“I’ll be fine!” she lies.

I don’t let her go, so she hits me in my face so hard that I drop her. She falls, and I quickly lose sight of her in the smoke below. The saucer is only meters above us, and Simon Smith grabs me and pulls me up to it. The whole saucer shudders violently, and for a second I think we have won, but then I hear the crack of plasma and see Dark Fire plummet to Earth.

Even he couldn’t stop the saucer.

Simon Smith smiles.

“We are so very dead,” I scream.

Simon Smith grabs me and holds me so that we are face to face. His eyes are dull and his face is completely, terrifyingly calm. He smiles at me and shakes his head as if laughing at some private joke.

“I always knew I’d die like this, but I always thought I’d be alone. I’m glad you are here,” he says.

This is not the time for a speech; this is the time to be overwhelmed with fear, loss and adrenaline.

“What are you talking about?” I scream, but he ignores me.

The saucer rumbles above us, and I can see that we are moving out of the city suburbs and over taller buildings. The saucer drops plasma onto shopping centers and apartment blocks, melting them to pools of smoking concrete. We have only minutes before we reach the center of the city, and only hours before we reach the next city. If we can’t stop the saucer then the cities of Earth only have days to live. I blast desperately at the saucer with everything I have, but achieve nothing. Simon Smith seems oblivious to the danger and keeps talking. There is death above us and chaos below, but for some reason all I can think of is that Simon Smith is glad I’m here.

I’m not glad I’m here.

“The others always made fun of me, you know. I could hear them, they never stopped. But you were kind to me, so I’ll leave you my gift. It’s quite fun, once the pain stops,” Simon Smith mumbles.

“Simon Smith!” I yell, “What the hell are we going to do? Those people below will die if we can’t stop this thing.”

“I know.”

“Dark Fire’s plans failed,” I whisper.

“No. No, I know his plan. Overload my suit.”

I help him overload his suit, and then he grabs my arm so tightly that I scream. I try to escape but my whole body has frozen and I can’t move. I look up desperately and Simon Smith smiles again.

“I don’t know who my real mother was and I hate all my foster parents, but tell Julie that she made me happy. Remember my name,” he says softly.

Then he throws me down to Earth with such force that I break the sound barrier with a deafening boom. I hit the ground hard, knocking out my remaining shields. I pass out for a few minutes, and when I come around Dark Fire is tying a bandage over my leg. Never Lies is lying beside me; she somehow survived the fall.

“Look up,” Dark Fire tells us.

I look up, but I don’t believe what I’m seeing. The saucer is getting higher, flying up and away from the city. Small Talk hands me a pair of binoculars and I search the saucer until I find Simon Smith. He is pushing the red saucer upwards into the sky, pushing it and its deadly turrets away from the city. I don’t know how he could be doing it – the ship is far too heavy for anyone to lift, so I can only think that his powers are increased beyond anything I’ve ever heard of. He pushes it up and away from the city, into the atmosphere and far out of danger.

“He did well… everyone look upwards!” yells Dark Fire.

And so all the Earth’s superheroes are watching when Simon Smith and the saucer explode so violently that for an instant the Earth has a second, brighter sun that blinds all on this side of the planet. The explosion is so fierce that nothing survives it except a few molten pieces of the saucer’s metal skin that rain down in tiny fragments.

For the next week Simon Smith was the only thing that anyone spoke about. His name really was Simon Smith, we found out, a name that was given to him by the nuns who had found him as a baby. He had grown into a weird and unsettled child who had bounced from foster home to foster home until at last the Corps found him. He was powerful but unhinged, and of all the teams only Dark Fire had agreed to work with him. It hadn’t been easy – he didn’t work well in a team. Dark Fire and his team had seen his value, however, and had persevered.

It was worth it: whenever people lose hope, whenever it seems we might lose this battle for Earth someone, somewhere will remember Simon Smith and how he saved us. Drinks are poured, people smile, and they toast the memory of when a single man beat the greatest weapon the saucers ever sent at us.

“To Simon Smith! The greatest superhero who ever was!” they shout.

And then those who knew him well add “what a weird guy,” but quietly, very quietly.

In case he hears us.